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DiManno: Not-quite total recall not quite so bad

Ever wake up in the morning, dimly recalling events from the night before, and JUST WANT TO DIE? Of course you have.

Or perhaps there's someone from the misbegotten past, a lover or frenemy, the very thought of whom now raises your hackles?

If only it were possible to, well, maybe not go back and undo one's regrettable behaviour, exactly – presumably it felt good at the time – but at least erase the tape that plays on endless loop in the brain, the embarrassing-moment reruns and what-was-I-thinking repining.

Selective Alzheimer's might not be such a bad thing. Because, while I often can't remember where I put the house keys, or the cat, I am condemned to recollecting in stark detail every stupid remark uttered, every slight suffered, and every alcohol-infused misjudgment committed. I envy – but don't believe – people who claim ignorance of, thus exoneration from, their own colossally bad conduct, attributing scandalous deportment to booze or drugs or a personality-shifting mood thing.

There's a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder that afflicts those of us who can't just shake it off, whether a childhood incident that's morphed into retrospective trauma or an event recent and raw; a boner, jibe, indignity that assumes disproportionate significance. Scientists call this phenomenon – reactivating painful experiences, sometimes to the point of physical and emotional paralysis – fear memory. It's real, and is being clinically studied, particularly in the context of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

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But there's been a breakthrough, reported by U.S. researchers this week in the journal Nature, which has opened up the possibility of exorcising those demons and deleting that tape.

In a lab at New York University's department of psychology, a group led by one Elizabeth Phelps – she's also studied the impact of fearful memories from 9/11 – has found a drug-free way to block the horror. Building on work done originally with rats, the researchers have identified a "window of susceptibility,'' where old memories can be changed or reconsolidated to minimize the stressful response.

It actually sounds more duh easy than sci-fi kooky – a Pavlovian behavioural conditioning whereby the provocative memory or image is deliberately summoned and then shown repeatedly in order to blunt the shock. The key revelation in these tests is that window of susceptibility, pegged at between 10 minutes and six hours, when a memory is vulnerable and can apparently be edited. That's because, Phelps has posited, the "fear memory'' is stored in a different part of the brain than the actual memory of the event that triggered it. When a long-term memory is recalled, the article explains, it goes through a brief period of fragility, after which it must be restored anew to be remembered again.

"What we think is happening is because we did it at the right time,'' Phelps reports. "You are restoring the memory as safe as opposed to just creating a new memory that competes with the old memory.''

There's no forgetting involved; it just doesn't hurt any more. At least that's the theory. Other scientists are skeptical. And some have questioned the ethics of erasing or messing with memory. Counters Phelps: "Everything we understand about how memory works will help us manipulate memories. And that can be used for good or evil.''

Ethics shmethics. Me, I'd be pitifully grateful to turn the memory tap on and off, cut those cringe-inducing episodes and ill-advised relationships out of my brainpan, like in the movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The other option is powerful memory-blanking drugs. Thus far, they apparently work on rats but are toxic for humans.

You forget ... and then you die.

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

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